Prodi loses support as Andreotti and right-wing take blame for his downfall

The chances of Romano Prodi picking up the pieces of his government and starting again following his resignation were looking bleak yesterday after most of his possible new allies indicated that they were not interested.

Mr Prodi offered President Giorgio Napolitano his resignation after losing a vote on foreign affairs on Wednesday night in the upper house. Mr Napolitano accepted it "with reserve", leaving open the possibility that Mr Prodi may get another chance to be Prime Minister if he can satisfy the President that he has the added support. His coalition government has only been in power for nine months, and the next election is not due until 2011. The President is required by the constitution to do everything in his power to find a new government before calling fresh elections.

Related articles

• Old Bat Ears and a Catholic agenda

But the Union of Christian Democrats, which has 20 Senate seats - enough to give Mr Prodi a healthy majority - made it clear yesterday that they would not join a government which includes the unreformed Communists, of whom Mr Prodi has 26, split into seven factions.

A Sicilian group of former Christian Democrats, known as the Movement for Autonomy, with 10 senators, had indicated that they could be induced to join the coalition in exchange for a commitment to build a bridge to Sicily and other infrastructure investments in the south. But, late in the day, word came that this group, too, had decided against joining Mr Prodi. Another Democristiano, Marco Follini, said, "I am not a kamikaze, I am only available if there is a new programme."

Mr Prodi's chances and choices are diminishing fast. And although he remains provisional Prime Minister, he has by his resignation surrendered the power to influence events to the President and what one paper called the "Russian roulette" of consultations between the President, party and factional bosses. The meetings began yesterday morning and are expected to go on all day today.

Meanwhile, the far-left components of the coalition were tormenting themselves with recriminations and bitter regret after two of them, a pacifist and a Trotskyite, abstained from voting for the government on Wednesday. After the government's losing vote a fellow senator yelled at one of the dissidents: "You're doing a dreadful thing, something you will regret all your life."

Massimo D'Alema, the Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, who was at least partly the author of Mr Prodi's misfortunes by insisting that a lost vote meant the end of the government, said sneeringly: "What do you expect if you put Trotskyites in parliament? This is the least that could happen."

Yesterday one of the two, Fernando Rossi, sounded remorseful. "Perhaps if I had known my vote would be so fundamental, I would have reflected further," he said. But his colleague, Franco Turigliatto, was more robust. "First off, I didn't vote against it, I abstained," he said. "Second, it wasn't me who was the determining factor."

He was right on both counts. For while commentators close to Mr Prodi and his Foreign Minister were quick to blame the far left for the debacle, others pointed out that the real damage arrived from an unexpected direction - far to Mr Prodi's right - when two senators for life abstained in the vote, and one voted against.

Apparently dumped by the far left, Mr Prodi was actually dispatched by the forces of conservatism. The former prime minister Giulio Andreotti, the legendary car designer Sergio Pininfarina and former president Francesco Cossiga have different priorities, but all are far to the right. Mr Andreotti's priority is the Catholic church; Mr Pininfarina's is Italian industry; while Mr Cossiga's is the American alliance. And while Mr D'Alema has worked hard during the government's short life to convince the world and the US in particular that he is a valuable and dependable ally, the likes of Mr Cossiga, looking at the coalition's left wing, have never fully believed him. Mr Pininfarina demands a more business-friendly industrial policy.

Yesterday, the three grand old men voted for a future in the hands of the right.

Prodi's problems

Afghanistan

Italy has 1,200 troops in Afghanistan, and Massimo D'Alema, the Foreign Minister, has refused to consider bringing them home - to the anger of left-wingers in the coalition, who say they can see no difference between Romano Prodi's foreign policy and Silvio Berlusconi's.

The Electoral System

Mr Prodi's centre-left coalition won Italy's general election in April by 25,000 votes, an advantage so slim that the departing premier Mr Berlusconi refuses to this day to concede defeat. The new election system, crafted, if that is the word, by the Northern League leader, Roberto Calderoli, and described unblushingly by himself as "a pile of shit", ensured that Mr Prodi's implausibly broad coalition would enjoy a large majority in the Camera, the lower house, but only a whisker of one in the Senate. Only by relying on supposedly neutral "senators for life", grandees from various walks of life including politics, could Mr Prodi get a bare majority. And it was never one he could be sure of - as he learned in the most humiliating way on Wednesday afternoon.

Vincenza

Mr Berlusconi agreed with an American plan to build a second American military base in the north-eastern city of Vincenza, increasing the numbers of US troops there to 4,500. Mr Prodi has refused to entertain the possibility of reversing this decision. A popular movement to scrap the plan has been growing for months in Vincenza and beyond, culminating last weekend with a huge and peaceful demonstration. But even so the government would not budge.

Civil Unions

Mr Prodi has been fighting with top figures in the Church over a bill to legalise civil unions, including gay ones. The two sides appeared to make up on Monday - but in fact the Church, including the Pope, was unmollified. Giulio Andreotti's "no" vote on Wednesday probably was related to this issue.

Pensions

Struggles ahead, including a long-overdue pensions reform law and a vote on financing the Afghanistan mission, threatened more close shaves. Some senior members of the government, including Mr D'Alema, may have decided that enough was enough.